I guess i should write down some more thoughts after finishing the game. If you liked Disco Elysium, you should definitely give this a try. Narratively it is full of memorable characters and layered situations. Thematically it's a muddle though. It may be at its best when it's in conversation with genre tropes, like the mysterious progenitor races, the non-human underclass
or the benevolent ancestral deity.
I think adding largely superficial modern elements was their worst thematic decision overall. They establish enough parallels to the real world to make many things quite unambiguous
like the freestriders being literal hegemonic imperialists, who you would only vote for as an unironic capitalist realist, or the nationalists canonically being bought by them and really diminish any nuance there was in these ideologies differing from their real-world counterparts. Only praxian magocracy and radical agrarianism seem specifically tailored to the setting.
I particularly like how densely connected the two top layers of the city are. The dungeon layout leaves something to be desired, since it's
maybe 7 points of interests connected by a few intersecting corridors and one preemptive shortcut. The environment art itself i'd say serve its purpose, while not really being noteworthy.
The quest system didn't turn out to be as good as it looked initially. For one it doesn't record minor quests, which would have helped with keeping track of some minor details or cleared up when a time limited quest expired
or the questgiver was already dead. Having traits be determined by your decision, which will most likely boil down to which clearly stated bonus is better for your character, also cheapens the outcome. You're not getting any flavor text beyond things that are otherwise tracked, which are class and political affiliation.
In fact i my character started refering to himself as a wizard, then pivoted to a druid and chose the associated trait. Due to both being tracked, people mentioned both at different times and i ended up chosing some more wizard option, because they gave exp for some reason, despite in no other way contributing to the final character sheet.Some of the balancing is also off (in a bad way), as i found out after acquiring
the jester halfway through
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